1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to liquid discharge apparatuses discharging liquid.
2. Description of the Related Art
In liquid discharge apparatuses including a liquid jet head jetting a liquid, if some of the liquid adheres to and remains on a liquid jet surface in which a plurality of nozzles of the liquid jet head are arranged, then some problems will occur such as impeding liquid jet from each nozzle to give rise to jet defection, etc. Therefore, ordinary liquid discharge apparatuses include a wiper adapted to wipe off the liquid adhering to the liquid jet surface of the liquid jet head.
For example, there are known ink jet printers including a recording head to jet ink while moving in a scanning direction, and a wiper to wipe off the ink adhering to an ink jet surface (facing surface) of the recording head.
Further, in such an ink jet printer, there may be a problem that when the wiper has wiped off the ink adhering to the ink jet surface of the recording head, part of the ink remains adhering and sticking to a lateral surface of the recording head. Therefore, there are known ink jet printers further including a scraper to remove the ink adhering to the lateral surface of the recording head. The scraper is integrated with a cap to cover the ink jet surface of the recording head. Along with raising and lowering the cap, the scraper moves up and down along the lateral surface of the recording head with only a little interspace left between the scraper and the lateral surface of the recording head. The scraper scrapes off the thickened ink accumulated above a certain height on the lateral surface of the recording head.